


Stop at Nothing

by kelex



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 07:45:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1974666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelex/pseuds/kelex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor doesn't let a collapsing universe stop him from reuniting with Rose.  (Doomsday fix)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop at Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_untempered_prism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_untempered_prism/gifts).



> Happy birthday, the-untempered-prism!

_I'm burning up a sun, just to say goodbye._

That troubled the Doctor, for months afterward. Rose was trapped. In Pete's World, as he fondly thought of it, with both her mother and her father, and Mickey the Idiot Smith, but still, she was trapped. Very far away from him, and even though he'd said goodbye, the pain in her voice, the ache in her heart, was hard for him to bear. 

And he tried not to dwell on it. 

But it ate away at him. Chewed, gnawed, sharpened its teeth on his conscience until he could think of nothing else. Not that it took much of a push; he already thought of little but Rose, but now it became almost an obsession. 

How they'd gotten to Pete's World in the first place; what malfunction had caused them to fall out of the Time Vortex, how the Time Lords had long ago regulated travel between dimensions, what kind of power it had taken simply to beam in a hologram of himself to say goodbye to Rose. 

And then he decided that nothing else mattered. There were billions of suns in the universe, all over time and space, and hundreds of them just being born at any given time. Hundreds of them dying, destroying planets that had never had life on them, barren worlds that were nothing more than hunks of rock and dust. 

Worlds that the universe wouldn't miss; he was at least careful about that. He pored over Gallifreyan star maps and planetary surveys, working day and night to find the right planetary system to use, the right star to siphon. 

And then he started building. The TARDIS workshop grew larger and larger as the capacitor he was designing grew in size, until it was almost the size of the engine itself. But it was this capacitor that would store the star's energy, that would supplement the engine and power it through the dimensional walls. And it was this capacitor that would let him pick up Rose, keep them anchored to this dimension and not strand them in Pete's World. 

It took him a month to build the capacitor, working almost non-stop. Occasional trips to here or there to pick up parts and pieces, or to learn a particular branch of quantum engineering that he didn't know before, or to pick the brain of an expert to confirm that while the universe might feel a bit of a quake, the fabric of reality wouldn't be ripped to shreds. 

\-----

Thanks to John Lumic, Cybus Industries--depleted though it was--still had a great deal in development. Some of what was in development was useless, extensions to or improvements on the Cybermen, which had been stopped in their tracks. But there were other things that were infinitely more valuable, and Pete Tyler was one of the few who was still privy to Cybus Industries secrets. 

One of those secrets was a theoretical scientific device conceived to possibly facilitate travel from planet to planet. After the stars had started to flicker out, the focus of the device had changed from planetary travel to dimensional travel. Torchwood and Cybus working together, that was an almost demonic pairing, but the cannon was developed. Dimensional cannon, they called it, and it worked. Almost too well, it worked. UNIT came in and took over from Cybus Industries, and Pete oversaw all of it.

Rose oversaw all of it. Pete knew better than to try and stop Rose from doing anything--life with Jackie had shown him that. The other Jackie, the one who wanted her own zeppelin and had died as a Cyberman, that Jackie had been stubborn enough, but this Jackie had it in spades. And she had stood up and told Pete, point blank, that if Rose wanted to get involved in that project, she was bloody well going to and it was going to take more than the likes of Peter Alan Tyler to stop her. 

He gave in gracefully after that. 

UNIT worked better with Rose than they had with any other liaison in the history of Cybus Industries or Torchwood, so Pete let them work. In two months, they had a working prototype, and in three, a stable version that actually weakened the barriers between dimensions.

Rose was the first to go.

\-----

The Doctor knew he was dreaming, because Rose told him so. "You're dreaming, Doctor. Or, well, almost dreaming. Torchwood says it's a middle ground, I guess, or something. I'm not quite sure. But I'm going to find you, Doctor. I'm coming back to you. Torchwood says the walls between dimensions are weakening." Her voice sounds a little unsure as she repeats the technobabble, but gains confidence as she goes on. "I'm not giving up on you, Doctor. You never gave up on me."

It's a real delight to hear her voice again, and for a moment, the Doctor doesn't hear what she's saying because he's just concentrating on the fact that he is hearing her voice, live and almost in person, again after too long. Finally her words penetrate, and he looks at her standing there on the beach. Always that damned beach. "You are brilliant, Rose Tyler. And your timing couldn't be better. Because I'm coming to get you." 

Even though it's only a dream, her laughter is warm and welcome. And her feet pound the sand heavily enough, and her arms feel real and solid enough as she hugs him tightly, grinning into his shoulder as his hand cradles the back of her head to keep her in close. "You just wait, Rose Tyler. You just wait and see."

"Not if I see you first, Doctor," she giggles, but doesn't let go until the Doctor wakes up.

\-----

Two universes might have collapsed before, but with the walls coming down on their own, that speaks to a bigger problem. One that the Doctor doesn't have time to fix at the moment, because he's rather busy exploiting it. 

He and Rose, they see each other every night in their dreams. UNIT and Torchwood have a fix on him now, and he's got a fix on them. The same crack as before, the Norway Crack as they call it, it's the biggest and the most stable. Of course it is; Bad Wolf Bay. Bad Wolf (and the Doctor hears Rose's voice clearly in his head: _I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words, I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here._ ) would have done it, she would have fixed it so that she could always get back to him ( _I want you safe. My Doctor._ ). 

The Norway Crack is where the TARDIS will land; the Dimension Cannon will be in place to hold the door open from their side, and the Doctor will use the TARDIS and the new capacitor to hold the door open from his side. Torchwood has created an energy siphon that can pull star energy out of the Doctor's capacitor, to shore up the walls around the crack. It should be enough to keep both universes from falling (further) apart, enough to let Rose and the Doctor re-board the TARDIS and take off. 

Then together, Rose and the Doctor will figure out why the universe is falling apart at the seams, and do whatever it takes to fix it. Permanently.

\-----

Rose can't help but be excited; this is the day. They've moved, temporarily, to Norway. For a month now, they've been living in a rental in Burgen, Jackie getting bigger and bigger every day. UNIT has followed, pitching camp in a warehouse in the outskirts while Torchwood fiddles the last corrections into the energy siphon. That's really the last thing that they need to do, and they've promised her that today is the first trial. If it works… she'll be able to peek through the cracks and see the Doctor. 

\-----

The TARDIS shakes like it's going to rip apart as the Doctor finishes destroying the sun. He's burned it up, sucked every bit of energy it ever had into the capacitor, and it's full to capacity and then some. It's at 117% percent, and he's working hard to shunt that overage into the engine to hold things steady. All of a sudden it works, and the TARDIS stops shaking quite so hard. 

He knows the coordinates; he could fly there in his sleep, he's imagined them enough times. But he parks right off Earth's atmosphere and dials in on Bad Wolf Bay. Not the most accurate of translations, he's sure, but it's certainly the most appropriate. He tractors onto the moon, just to be safe, and directs all of the TARDIS engine power at the coordinates. 

On the planet below, on a deserted beach, a glow appears, and it turns slowly into a rip. In the TARDIS control room, the engine thrums as it struggles to encase the rip, and it brings the opening on board. "Rose?" he calls out, over the rumbling and creaking and thrumming.

\-----

The glow begins, and Rose looks excitedly at the Torchwood personnel around them. Gwen Cooper is running the show, and is gripping Rose's hand tightly. "All right, this is what we've been waiting for. As soon as the readings show it opening, use the siphon and pull in what you can, make it stable." 

"Yes ma'am." The red-capped UNIT operative worked the dials on the side of the cannon, activating the siphon and pulling in energy from the Doctor's capacitor on the other side of the rift. "Something's forming, now…"

And then she hears it. Properly hears it, the Doctor's voice, more real than it has ever been in their shared dreams. "Doctor! Yes! Doctor, it's me, it's Rose! I'm here!" Her voice is choked up and teary. "I can hear you, oh my God, I'm here!" 

\-----

"Rose!" For the first time since he'd lost her, it felt like both of his hearts were beating again. "I hear you… I can see you!" And he could--just barely, surrounded by a deep golden glow… there she was. "Rose, I can see you." He was nearly at tears himself, though he refused to let them fall where she could see. 

He reached out towards her.

\-----

Rose reached back. Their fingers barely brushed, just a millimeter of contact, fingertip to fingertip, but it was enough. Rose broke down into tears, groping and trying to grab onto the Doctor's hand, to pull him through or drag herself through, she wasn't sure which. 

Someone was speaking to her but she didn't hear it, and suddenly she was being hauled backwards by Pete, his arms wrapped around her as the glow faded. "Hush, Rose, hush. It was just a test, now everything's on for tomorrow," he soothed, holding her tightly against his chest as she wept. "That bloke had better be worth it," he added, hoping to tease a smile out of her. 

It worked, sort of. She was still crying, but the tears were happy, and she could barely speak through it. "He is, Dad, I promise. He's worth everything and more."

\-----

The Doctor could see Pete hauling Rose backwards, and he could barely hear UNIT and Torchwood shouting at one another and at him to make this correction or that, to increase or decrease the energy flow, but he managed to get it all down. He confirmed with UNIT the coordinates for tomorrow's actual landing, but as it started closing, he panicked. 

"Rose!" He scrabbled past the control console, towards the gap without entering into it. "Rose, I will be here tomorrow, I promise. I give you my word, you know I wouldn't lie to you. " As the gap snapped shut, he shouted into it. "I love you, Rose Tyler!"

\-----

Rose was clinging to Pete as the rift started to close, but then the Doctor called out her name. She didn't have a chance to answer it other than, "I'll be here, Doctor, I'll wait for you!" The rift finally snapped shut, on the last of the Doctor's words. 

"You hear that? He loves me." Rose was crying again, holding onto Pete as she reached for the empty air. "He actually said it this time." 

"Course he does. He wouldn't be tearing the universe apart for just any old girl," Pete reassured, having known the Doctor enough to know that. "Come on. UNIT's got a tent for us tonight, you can wash up and not show that Doctor bloke a weepy face." 

She didn't care, and she knew the Doctor didn't care either. 

\-----

It was the longest twenty hours of the Doctor's entire existence. He could not, would not leave, wouldn't take the chance of throwing anything out of balance. So he was stuck, hovering in the space around the Earth, staring at the empty space in the control room through which he'd seen Rose. Looked down at the fingertips that had barely touched hers. 

They still tingled. 

He tried to read, and could not concentrate. He went to the workshop, and could not create. He went to Rose's old bedroom, and started to clean. A layer of dust had fallen, and he wiped it down. Fresh linens were in the closet, and he re-made her bed. There were clothes still in the closet, and he ran them through the TARDIS laundry and carefully hung them back up. 

Stubbornly, the TARDIS kept enlarging the room. Trying to put in a larger bed, and the Doctor had to remind it, several times, until it finally let the room stay in the original configuration. 

That ate up exactly eight hours of his time, and left twelve more to fill up. 

So he started to draw. He started with long, shallow arcs that quickly resolved into long hair. Rose's eyes appeared with a smudge of the pencil, peering out at him from underneath her hair. Her nose was a quick scribble, and her mouth was full and upturned in a teasing, welcoming smile. She was wearing a Union Jack t-shirt, and a leather jacket over it, and long legs were encased in wrinkled denim and trainers. 

Her right arm fell to her side, but her left arm was out, hand wrapped around nothing. That quickly turned into a hand, connected to a pin-striped arm, which then connected to a shoulder, and then his own face and spiky hair. 

Himself and Rose, standing together, hands clasped, quirky smiles bright. 

Turning the page, he started a second. And then a third. 

The second drawing was just Rose, stretched out on his coat on New Earth, hair in her eyes from the grass-scented breeze, feet crossed and looking over at him with glee.  
The third was Rose, pressed against a wall, hand flat against it as if she'd just been beating on it. The wall was breaking, a huge crack in the middle with rubble on the floor, and the pinstriped arm was back, reaching out for her. A speech bubble peeked from the other side of the crack, with the caption "I'm coming for you, Rose." 

\-----

Rose had not slept. She laid awake, staring at the stars flickering overhead, fingers drumming on her stomach. Now, it was barely daylight, and she was up on her feet. Someone had already been to the bakery in Burgen, and brought back pastries and coffee, so she helped herself to a cup and to one of the jelly doughnuts on the plate. 

"Morning, Miss Tyler," and variations thereof were all she heard at first as UNIT and Torchwood personnel were just waking up and getting into place. She wandered around, staying well out of the way of the people setting up the connections for her. After two more cups of coffee and another doughnut, she found Gwen Cooper pulling her over. 

"Right, now, the Doctor should be transmitting at any time. The coordinates are about fifty yards up on the beach, and that's where I want you. Our equipment will have to stay back to make sure the energy bleed doesn't wreck everything. The TARDIS will land, and it will be existing in two places at once--here, and in the other dimension. Same set of coordinates in both places. As soon as you're on board, the TARDIS will leave, and the Norway Crack will start to close. It won't close all the way until whatever is happening to cause this weakness in the walls are fixed, but you won't be able to re-open it again." 

Rose looked back at Pete, who had gotten up after Rose and was watching her from the tent flap. Then she turned her attention back to Gwen. "I understand. It'll be just me and the Doctor." 

"Yes ma'am, it will be." Gwen perused something on a UNIT clipboard, signed it, and handed it back to the soldier. "Take your place, Rose. It's time."

\-----

The Doctor was powering up the TARDIS engine and capacitor, and programmed in the coordinates. He felt the ship thump to a stop on the beach, and he ran to throw open the doors. As soon as they were open, the capacitor started to hum loudly, and the TARDIS shook as the engines dug in to hold itself here and the capacitor shunted it to another dimension. 

\-----

UNIT and Torchwood were shouting as the Dimensional Cannon revved up, spewing an invisible ray of particles at the Norway Crack. It widened visibly, a wave of gold and green energy swirling around, and then she heard it. 

The groaning wheeze of the TARDIS engines, on the other side of the crack. 

It widened further, and the TARDIS started to materialize on the beach in front of her, doors wide open. 

"Wait until it's fully materialized!" shouted a UNIT tech, and Rose stumbled back a few steps as it started to take on solidity until finally, the TARDIS was there in front of her, whole and open. 

And there he was. Standing behind the console, skinny and spiky and beaming so wide he could swallow his own head, was the Doctor. Rose sobbed as she threw herself into the TARDIS, running up the rickety ramp as fast as she could. 

The Doctor's arms were open wide and he went down, banging onto the floor grating as he caught Rose and cushioned her against his chest. "Hello there, Rose Tyler," he said through the grin, and Rose was weeping, and laughing, and grinning as wide as she could. 

The TARDIS doors slammed shut of their own volition, and the Doctor got up, pulling Rose up behind him. He did not let her go in the least, instead reaching around her to manipulate the controls and break the connection between the dimensions. 

One last, giant shudder, and the ship quieted around them. "You're here," Rose choked out, keeping her arms wrapped around the Doctor. "You're really, really here."

"Course I am." The engines groaned again, and the TARDIS dematerialized. He wasn't going to stay on that beach for a moment longer than he had to. Instead, he landed them on the moon, and let the ship shut down as he held tightly to Rose. "I wouldn't leave you behind."

"I know, it was just so long." Rose was shaking, but being around the Doctor was making it better. His hand was stroking her hair, soothing and calming as if he couldn't bear to let her go. That was fine with her; she didn't want him to let go, ever. 

"I know, I'm so sorry." The Doctor tilted Rose's chin up, just a bit, so that he could see her through wet lashes and puffy eyelids. "But you're not leaving my side again. You're going to be with me, forever."

"Forever," Rose echoed, and laid her head on his chest.

\-----

When Rose went back to her bedroom, she found everything exactly the way she'd left it. Except for the walls; two framed drawings hung on the wall. Both were of her and the Doctor, one of them on New Earth--she recognized the buildings in the distance, and the other of them holding hands in the TARDIS control room. 

\-----

When Rose entered the Doctor's bedroom, he was waiting for her. Silk sheets were on the bed, her favorite music was playing somewhere in the background, and he was sitting with his back against the headboard. 

Over his head was another framed drawing, this one from the neck up, with a lonesome expression and a silver tears shimmering in her eyes. "You do that?" she asked, pointing with her head to the drawings. 

The Doctor just nodded, and held his hand out to her. "Yeah. Had to do something to fill the time." When she took it, he drew her down into the bed beside him, and held her close. Her body fit perfectly against his own, and he realized he had even missed the feel of her t-shirt and her boxers. 

Rose melted against the Doctor, letting out a deep sigh of contentment. She was comfortable in his bed, comfortable in a way she hadn't been since she'd been stranded in Pete's World. But here, she was whole again, and she was able to take a deep breath and relax. The rhythm of his hearts thumped in her ears, and his fingers once again stroked through her hair. "I love you too, Doctor."

"Quite right, too." He kissed her forehead, and then both cheeks before pressing a quick kiss to her lips. "And I promise you'll never forget that I love you." 

End


End file.
